Bloglines

The verdict is, I liiiiiiiike it! Busy at work all day, no time for web surfing to dink around and check what's up of interest. Get home and with just one Bloglines login, I get my daily dose of imagery, read two jokes from Comedy Central, get the Wordsmith word of the day, see the status of every blogger I follow (only Dephal has written new stuff and I pick up those two posts), and cruise a couple of the 36 new article headlines at Motley Fool, and see that everything else I currently follow online has no new news. My online experience feels very shiny and manageable!

Sure hope they come up with Lifelines soon.

Way to go, Idaho

Kudos to the Idaho State Legislature for their solemnity and prudence in passing House Concurrent Resolution 29 commending Jared and Jerusha Hess, creators of Napoleon Dynamite. If you don't click on that link and scroll down to the bill text you're all freakin' idiots.

What do you call someone from Toronto?

A Torontoan? Torontoid? Torontula? Dunno, but this guy Sam Javanrouh lives there, and his photoblog 'daily dose of imagery' is a take on the world that I wonder how I ever got along without before now. He consistently captures a journey in one moment. He's originally from Tehran and I don't know what people there are called either but possibly the bus driver simply misunderstood him.

Land of the living

I'm not completely there but I can see it from here. (And the land of the living is pretty cold today at -2F.) In an abstract way I'm worried about all that didn't get done with this unprecedented five days off, there are so many critical FOP deadlines that this time was supposed to address. And yes, there's still today but I am so weak yet that I know not much will get done against that mountain of work. My mind feels tired and out of focus.

Late last night my phone rang with the gang up at Lake Louise, telling me they had gone through the beer and were into the tequila (I could have guessed) and were playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. In my first opportunity as the phone-a-friend, I failed dismally (I didn't know India even had its own rhino much less how many horns it had, though if I'd had more than 20 seconds it probably would have come to me) and lost Robert and Erin $250,000 in fake money. Er, well, I hope it was fake money. However, I must have retained some credibility as they called me back later for a question of word pronunciation (that one I knew).

Kari said they'd had to stay in most of the weekend because the overflow on the ice is too dangerous to do much snowmachining. It was -28F there last night. It was fun to be on speakerphone and hear all the laughter.

Spending several days here at home, once the fever broke, has also confimed the fact that MY HEAT ISN'T REALLY FIXED YET. Looks like +64F is my upper limit on both floors of the house now and I just didn't realize it. My landlord came and fiddled yesterday but Rome didn't burn. With the much colder temps last night, the living room dropped to +58F. I'm ready to return to the good old days when it was 85 degrees upstairs and no heat downstairs, at least I could choose my biosphere then.

On a more philosophical note, I also had an email exchange last night with a friend who's also single and lives alone - she commented on how horrid it is to be so sick and alone, perhaps a preview of our older years. But how valued are the simplest things in life as we emerge from illness. I have been feeling so grateful for things like my dog's being willing to lie next to me for a few minutes when I shook with uncontrollable chills. For being able to get up and get dressed and spending more of the day sitting instead of sleeping. For the taste of a cold ginger ale even though I could only handle a few sips before the chill set in. I thought for a while yesterday about how damned grateful I was for the pain and fever to have stopped, and wondered how much worse it is for anyone who is experiencing real illness long-term. Well, I don't need to wonder because I can remember those years for myself. But I did get better - I just didn't have any assurance that I would, so lived in a protracted state of fear and frustration and defeat. (hey wait, how is that any different from now exactly?)

Such elemental parts of life come into stark relief, and I would like to keep that clarity. I would like to keep it while living comfortably at +70F too.

Gang aft agley

By Wednesday night very shortly after my last entry, I succumbed to fever and chills, and lost the holiday and the weekend trip both.

I couldn't ask for a better companion when I'm sick than Hunter, who is so undemanding and adapts well to shattered routine more than any other dog I've had. Possibly this only means that I've given him so little structure to count on in the sort of tenuous life I provide for both of us that he's come to expect very little from me. He is still recovering too so did not get too stir crazy about being shut inside. But I did nothing except sleep and stumble downstairs a couple of times to let him out and throw some kibble in the bowl at bizarre times, finally it was too much to go up and down the stairs and when I collapsed on the couch, every time I woke up he was curled up at the other end by my feet. I've lost all track of time, with that protracted fever I would lie down 'for a minute' and find that hours had gone by as the snow kept falling.

Last night I thought I could stay awake long enough to watch a movie, and a few minutes before it started, I heard a noise on my front steps. My neighbor Gregory was clearing my steps and driveway - I wrapped a quilt around me and peeked out the front door into the single-digit night. He said he knew something must be wrong because we'd had three significant snowfalls and I was the only person not out shoveling, though he'd seen that Hunter had come and gone outdoors so he knew I was home and semi-functional. I thanked him and lay back down on the couch, and after that much effort I didn't even see the opening credits; woke up three hours later in time to go to bed.

Early this morning the fever broke, I had heavy pajamas on (hand-me-downs that my mom bought and didn't like, so altered them for me before she left... thank goodness, because in my adult life I would never own a pair of flannel pj's otherwise, and I really needed them) and was under a double comforter and was still cold. And my very non-bed-snuggling dog obliged me by staying in bed close enough to keep my legs warm until the worst of that was over. I was just so grateful that he stayed put - he really hates that generally but I was so cold I wanted to cry.

So it's been a rough 48 hours. By this afternoon the aching had lessened and my eyes felt normal again, and I felt well enough to sit up more and sleep less. We stayed on the couch all afternoon and eve and are both headed to bed now. I suppose it's a measure of how sick I still am that I actually don't care all that much that there was no Thanksgiving and no wintry cabin weekend. I don't have the energy of interest to feel bad about it yet. Hunter is feeling better also and burned off some steam in the backyard today for a few minutes. I don't know what he looks for when he buries his head in the snow - my other dogs would push down and maybe sniff hard or root around and come back up - instead Hunter stands very still and stays down there long enough to alarm me a bit.

How I spent my day off

Hunter didn't make it home last night - I got caught in a traffic snarl as I headed out of town. People were bailing off the highway and there was gridlock as far as I could see up the road. I knew I could never get all the way out to Palmer before the clinic closed. So I got off the road at my last-chance exit, called them and they kept him overnight.

By early this morning, however, several inches of snow had fallen, more was coming down, roads had not been cleared, and a winter storm advisory was in effect. This was my view for the over four hours' round trip to get the 50 miles to the clinic and back. Very glad I was headed the opposite direction from the morning commuters but still it was unnerving. I have a lot of experience driving in crummy conditions but I never take that for granted. Slow and careful got me there. If I hadn't made it I could have called George and Becky and had them retrieve him but I really wanted him home with me. Had I gone later in the day, I wouldn't have made it at all - an accident with injuries closed the road for three hours. These are the disadvantages to having only one road out of town - what a drag for anyone trying to go north from Anchorage today for the holidays too.

And maybe Hunter is fixed now, and maybe he isn't. (If you are put off by a description of my dog's lower intestinal tract, go away.) Dr. Ron said that he got out all of the sutures that he could find, but there was a track leading to what he is sure were more buried stitches. He also said that the tissue itself - sort of that productive lining at the back end of the operation - was friable and just kind of fell apart. He began to remove that tissue and said he just pursued things as far as he felt he would with his own dog, stopping short of turning it into another more serious operation. Enough may have been removed that with time and meds, Hunter may be able to tolerate whatever is still in there. If he doesn't, it's another surgery and it would begin to compromise the actual structures too. Ron and I were both discouraged.

Got him bundled into the car and back into the nasty weather. Back to Anchorage and ran some errands. Here's a diversion: This is where Hunter tucks himself whenever he's waiting in the car. A 60-lb dog should not be able to fit under the steering column of my tiny car, but he does. Once there, however, he is unable to get out. (PS: May I just point out that this is the most adorable dog ever???) So when I return and open the door, I have to help him get extricated out onto the ground, turn around and get back in the car. This is repeated at every stop, so on a day's outing we go through this perhaps 6-10 times. People look at us funny but I'm used to it. He started doing this about 8-10 months after I first got him. Initially I thought it was because it was a warm summer and he was trying to get out of the heat. I have no idea why he does it really, though I'm sure he feels safe and out of sight from people. But why he doesn't just do it on the passenger's side where there's room, I have no guess.

Not that there was much room on the passenger's side today, and let me hasten to say that under normal conditions my dog is also not surrounded by that many cases of booze. This was my part of the preparations for an expedition northward to the Campbell family cabin at Lake Louise from this Friday through Sunday. I can't wait to get up to that breathtaking spot in the mountains - there'll be a ton of snow up there and just all that winter beauty plus a beautifully built place to stay (with heat! power! satellite TV! propane fridge! everything except plumbing!) will make remote camping awfully luxurious. We'll park at the lodge and snowmachine back to the cabin.

Anyway - back to the day's wrapup. Hunter was feeling punky and climbed onto my bed. He looks pretty pitiful here. I think he was hurting because he didn't protest when I got in bed too, curled up around him and we both slept - I conked out for about three hours and felt a little ill on waking, think I've just been pushing hard for a long time and also the day's tension had rather knocked the stuffin out of me too. It's snowing again and there's no place I need to be until Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and that's even within two miles walking distance if the roads were bad. So I am content and just glad to be safely back at home with my little boy.

Surgery to fix the surgery

Just a minor matter, but Hunter is going under this morning to followup on the anal gland surgery from 10 weeks ago. I hope this will finally bring this chapter to a close.

Angel and Zoe

These are our brand new neighbors sharing the backyard fence. Angel is a 9-month-old Lab mix puppy and Zoe is a beagle mix about three years old, her young human girls inform me. They seem like a nice family, and we have had a little too much drama on our block recently, so that suits me fine.

Angel is rapt whenever Hunter is in the backyard. She sits at attention and her eyes never wander - just fixed on him and whatever he does. She also idolizes her 'big' sister though her big sister is already smaller than she. Zoe reminds me so much of Courtney. Hunter doesn't seem that interested either way, but I notice that when Zoe is out, he will often stand with tail wagging furiously though he doesn't approach her - he adored Courtney and I wonder if he sees the resemblance too.

Got myself an early Christmas present today in the form of a very inexpensive digital camera to make life's blogging moments easier. Actually it probably just means lots more pictures of my dog:

Or the stuff that's on my walls, like this pretty print that I just looooove so much and finally had framed this summer with Nancy's help - when the frame I wanted was way beyond my ability to purchase, I settled for something less (but still nice) and that stinker Nan called the frame shop and had them upgrade to the frame I'd coveted so much...

Or just what I'm currently wearing:

Yep, you're probably feeling real glad right now that I got a new camera.

Happy birthday, Keith

Thank you for a being a guy who's never let me down.

Lifeboat

(Entry backdated)

I've just been through one of the hardest 5-6 day stretches I can remember. The regulatory audit felt grueling; the last time we went through it I wasn't present - not sure why though probably just because I was working a part-time occasional schedule. I feel very proud of how we did but it was a constant scramble under the sort of pressure that went past difficult and into truly debilitating - my muscles hurt, my face was gray and drawn, felt like there was just no inner space of peace or calm, nothing but unrelenting pressure. It's the kind of thing where you welcome the scrutiny - besides the fact that it's an ongoing requirement - because it confirms that your clients have the best possible representation, and you learn things that you can do better. And the examiners were good and decent people, conscientious about their job but pleasant in their interactions. But it's also like a test for which you can't study, you can only rely on having never missed a detail, never having looked out the window or let your attention wander, and knowing where every piece of paper is too. And to pass requires a perfect score.

The lifeboat was Kari and Erin's stepping in to take care of Hunter every day. What a godsend to drop him off as soon as they opened in the early morning in order to get to work a couple hours early, and know that for the next 12 hours I didn't have to worry about him for a single minute. They were really the only other people who saw me during this, and from their feedback I gather I was projecting as someone to be worried about. Without my mom here as backup now, I just don't know how I could have coped - there would have been no moments that I could leave or do anything to have taken care of him. It was a hard week anyway but it didn't impact his well-being - he hadn't been in daycare for several days in a row before, long days too, but he handled it and I'm so grateful to them for that care. Also grateful to Nancy, who offered to foot the bill as a demonstration of her own thanks.

Change in plans

I was supposed to be on a plane today. Have been clinging to two free tickets for over a year now, and had decided this trip was the one worth spending it on. A flight out of this cold weather, to a warm place I'd never been, into the welcoming arms of a friend for a delicious week of relaxing and exploring and connecting.

Didn't happen. Some months ago that friendship tanked. A few weeks ago I canceled the tickets and paid a fine for the privilege which I guess means they really weren't free. Got back to the real world where wonderful delicious plans aren't part of life on Planet Peg.

Check that. This morning I awoke in the dark with my dog buddy breathing quietly by my side, got up and got the coffee started. It's been a working weekend as we prepare for a regulatory review that's part of operations every couple of years. Hard concentration kind of work but interspersed with Emma's companionable attentions and those incredible oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that Nancy makes.

Listened to the quiet from the rest of the house now that my mother has returned home. Went outside in the snow. Met the two new dogs next door (photos soon!), one of whom could be Courtney's sister. Heartstrings pulled there, but gently.

Put a few of those yummy cookies in a bag for Keith for a drive-by as I head to work. He answers the door and we set plans for O's fluids tonight so he will feel better soon. Get on the phone to Michele about dinner tonight since Chuck is still out of town. Send a few emails, catch up here and there. I'm working at the computer, Nancy's clearing some files away, there's the sound of the table saw from the workshop where John is building his beautiful wooden boat. Emma naps throughout.

Today is a breathtaking, clear winter day, work is challenging but the pace and the energy is easy, friends are woven through the day making it rich with warmth and moments of meaning. I thought perhaps I'd feel sad today but I'm just too content. Life is all about the changes in plans, and I'm checking out the airline schedules to choose another warm place I've never been.

A word from our sponsor

Yes, I know the clustrmap isn't working. That's them, not me. Use a thumbtack like anyone else.

Just a reminder

that I live with the world's most adorable roommate. The other pup is a heating pad - guess Hunter was feeling the stress of all his little doggie responsibilities.

Hood ornaments

I'm a big fan of bumper stickers (reading them, not wearing them). Vanity license plates too. But some forms of individual expression bemuse me. Who really needs a double-cobra license plate holder on a Ford Focus?

We have liftoff, almost

Nana should be on the plane now, taking off in 15 minutes or so. The best idea I had was to arrange a wheelchair escort - I did so more to make sure that someone else would be responsible for her than for her physical ability, though I don't think she could make the Chicago connection on her own two feet. But it made things very abrupt for our leavetaking tonight. We are only a couple minutes from the airport. Parked the car, walked in, found no line at United, checked in, took the bags to TSA, her escort picked her up, went to security screening, and she bypassed all 300 people in six lines and straight through on VIP status. They didn't even have her stand up for her own screening. I leaned over and kissed her face and she just vanished. Nothing left for me to do so I was out of the airport before I even had to pay for parking. Certainly no time for sentiment either.

And she's gone, and after nearly a year here that will take some getting used to, in finding our way into the life pattern that happens next. But I still have the next 12 hours to worry myself sick before that happens.

A message for my grandfather, on Veterans' Day

I never met either of my grandfathers. My paternal grandfather died when my own father was a child. My maternal grandfather died while my mother was pregnant with me. There are no family stories of my father's father, though it has seemed to me that his death was the knell of disaster that fated my father into a difficult struggle for the next 40 years until he also died, also too young. But there are lots of stories about my mother's father, born Andrew Jackson Burrell in 1893 in Clayton, Georgia.

My brothers, though their own memories are only those of small-childhood too (they were 10 and 4 when Dad-Dad passed) regaled me through the years with their bragging about all the spoiling that they got and I missed out on. Frankly, I think a precious little granddaughter would have really messed up that gig for them! A black and white snapshot shows Dad-Dad cuddling my brother Barry who has been dead nearly 30 years. My mother's memoirs contain a chapter called My Father's Hands, which begins with how when she was born weighing only 3.5 pounds, her height of 13" was measured in the span of her father's hand.

On this day of days, it isn't that my grandfather was the only soldier my family sent to war. We sent all of the men, on both sides. My dad was a Navy cook and a gunner's mate on a subchaser in the Pacific, while both his brothers were sent to Europe. Though one of his brothers deserted while on leave, the other was decorated for valor in crawling alone to a machine gun emplacement and singlehandedly taking it out.

Both my mother's brothers were drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. Her oldest brother Amory was a young father when he went to war, and the period of long weeks when he was injured and missing were hell on his family back home. Her other brother Marion remained in Europe for a time after the war's end as part of the occupying force.

But it was Andrew Jackson Burrell who went without being asked to go. At the age of 53, he enlisted rather than only send his sons where he himself was not willing. He was sent to the Pacific as a boiler tender on the USS Ticonderoga, called "Pops" by his young shipmates. And he was in the boiler room on January 21, 1945 when the first kamikaze struck. About 40 men were killed in the first strike, and several planes stowed on board caught fire and the ship began to list starboard. The captain ingeniously ordered the port bulkheads flooded so that the ship would list to port and dump off the burning planes. But not long after, the second kamikaze hit, killing a hundred more including the captain, and wounding over 200 others. My grandfather survived, though it was a hell of confusion in the depths of the burning ship - the vignette I remember vividly was being told how one of his young friends tried to escape up a ladder, and was melted to the steel.


There are other things that measure my grandfather in ways less dramatic. Those large hands wrought furniture and tools and a lovely little house built on our Pennsylvania dairy farm. He could imagine and build and repair. He raised his children, adored his grandchildren, and was a husband three times over.

My grandfather has always been shown to me through others' eyes. My mother's reminiscences, my brothers' memories of a grandfather who must have seemed godlike to these small boys. My own few contacts with two of my grandfather's nine brothers, nearly 30 years ago now, but which left definite impressions on me. His spirit as wrought in his oldest son, my adored Uncle Amory who died when I was six but whose impact on me is indelible. In Amory's son, my cousin Mike, in whom I see the same qualities of intelligence and humor and integrity and strength.

But now in my own middle age, I find I set aside the interpretive lens of others, and their memories, however precious. I think instead of the man who left behind a wife and daughter, and went to war believing that to do so would bring his own sons home. I think of the man with imagination and capacity, who knew what was right, and lived it. I reach out and find my hand engulfed in one that is impossibly large but entirely familiar. I realize I have always known my grandfather. And I speak to him, and he knows who I am.

Ziggy

First pictures. This is one Redoubtable Little Stylin Cat. He doesn't have the juvenile look of a kitten - he is extremely petite and fine featured, but is proportioned like an adult cat in miniature. Gregarious, engaging, cuddly, and rumbles like a volcano every moment. So cute it should not be legal!

A couple of pretty girls

Just ran across this photo that I took of Deeta and Kozmo this fall. Kozmo really misses Pogo, I think. But she still has her playmate in neighbor Buddy and now his brand-new little brother Pooch too. Also a petite, rambunctious and rumbly kitten, Ziggy, has stepped into DC's honored pawprints to take over the black boycat role - I need to go over and get some pictures. Kozmo does not know entirely what to make of him. She was lying on her bed the other day, and Ziggy walked up, settled in under her chin and wrapped his front legs around her muzzle, which is about the size of this whole cat. For a youngster, he's beautifully inhibited about using his claws, and he just patted Kozzie's face all over! Adorable.

Happy birthday, Matthew

Thank you for being my big brother. Thank you for being a good man.

This could work!

Auntie Kari sent home some Halloween candy, and tonight I find that Hunter has quite an affection for Smarties!

H2-O

After a weekend of postponements while the humans gathered their courage, O got his first delivery of fluids at home this evening. I had the easy job as the needle pusher. Keith had the very tough job of making sure we didn't get hurt. Difficult to keep a cat scruffed firmly for several minutes when the kitty is all loose skin to begin with. It went about 200 times better than I was expecting. O complained and squirmed and complained more, but he didn't really mount a struggle or break out the weapons. He ate some wet food afterward too. One down. Who knows how many more to go. He seizured again earlier this evening so I really hope that getting him into a fluid schedule will support him through this stage of his life.

Creampuff contractors

I'm working at Nancy's today and there is a bathroom renovation going on upstairs. One of the contractors came down to ask a question and as he returned upstairs, he encountered Emma in the back hall. It's been close to 3 minutes now and his nonstop stream-of-consciousness quiet babytalking has not paused, while she soaks up the attention and I sit here with a big grin on my face. Impolite to eavesdrop. Too precious not to.

(updated) He's leaving now. He's kneeling beside her and kissing her nose again and again and crooning to her about what a wonderful girl she is, and rubbing her ears and kissing her some more. This is a company for all your home renovation needs!

The story of O

My friend O is an old white cat with a...sharp...way of showing his regard for people. Let's just say that our encounters have involved occasional bloodletting and none of it his. I've also awakened to find him purring on my pillow, a sense of sweet enjoyment combined with the thrill of impending disaster should I inadvertently move any of the wrong muscles.

And he is old and confused and in renal failure and seizuring. In the years I've known him he's gone from sullen to vulnerable, and in his little sphere of influence, a claw has hooked into my heart.

Love without risk

I learned something about me today. Actually I learned this last summer but today it reappeared with clarity. This is purposely vague because the details do not belong only to me. But I spoke to someone I love, just opened my heart and let its words rise. They were thrown back at me today in an angry wave, and...the wave washed through me without any harm at all. I bowed my head a minute, expecting some recoil or objection to awaken and mount a defense. And it just didn't happen. I realized that I was bowing my head to honor his strong emotion, but where the wave actually touched me it was calm and moved smoothly through. My throat was aching, but I realized that was for his pain, not mine. Do I wish it were different? I don't know. I don't think I would have done anything differently because my motives were pure and I had no agenda in mind. But while I've had my love thrown away about a dozen times by lovers and partners and friends, this is the first time I've noticed that as it lies discarded, it's no less sparkling and warm among the other small treasures forgotten in the sand. I have not found it in me to love many (any?) people with that much largeness of heart. Now naturally it's the way of life on Planet Peg that an unprecedented piece of love and care still gets ashcanned with the many, many other less noble attempts. But today I'm planted true and I open my hands and I ask the next wave to come.

Movie: Shopgirl

This is a sweet, spare story, a Steve Martin screenplay based on his acclaimed short novel. Successful and wealthy Ray (Martin) is charmed by artist (and Saks shopgirl) Mirabelle (Claire Danes) who is perplexed by young bohemian Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman).

Ray's essentially perfect existence has no beating heart of its own. Mirabelle lights all the corners of his life in a way nearly divine for its simplicity and its depth, but he chooses to use only a small part of the bright love and beautiful grace that surrounds her. This part, and nothing else. He refuses her more, and he shows her his limits in a painful way, and the decisions she makes for herself are clear-eyed and sure and true. She loves deeply. . . and she values herself. When some months later, Ray sees Mirabelle one day in the arms of the messy and incongruous man who has dived headlong into loving her with all the truth of his heart, Ray realizes the full measure of her worth and the measure of his loss. I am still feeling the tears behind my eyes when he murmurs, "I did love you."

The heat is on

May it last longer than 24 hours this time. Have been without heat downstairs for the last 18 days. Night temps outside in single digits. Reluctant landlord does not wish to pay real repair people. Have also been going to a lot of movies this week in order to be away from house while pseudorepair people with impressive mechanical engineering credentials work on furnace. Just got back from another movie. Downstairs is a-warming. Last time this occurred, we celebrated. We are not so quick with the enthusiasm now.

Hunter's woe of tail, chapter 31

The vet confirms today that Hunter's continuing post-surgical problems (he is two months out from anal gland resection) are from having rejected the dissolvable stitches. This does not surprise me as I have so far clipped three long filaments of PDS that had begun to extrude from normal skin at some distance from the original incision, plus cut out an area near the incision that seemed to be drawing inward, tightly binding off normal skin. So I knew we had issues with the stitches. Though I'd been looking at him very carefully, I hadn't felt inside him until today - the suture knots are easily felt, and they aren't going to go anywhere. No wonder he's been uncomfortable. He goes back to surgery on the 22nd, should be a minor matter to explore and cut out anything they can get to. Nystatin and triamcinolone cream in the meantime to try to bring down the inflammation and keep infection away. Possibly this story will end one of these days.

Sunny day

Just a couple of pictures I took of Emma last week before the snow fell. Outside for cold air to sniff, inside for sunny spot to nap. Life is good.

Well-known in Wichita

Nathaniel's blog is published in a Wichita Eagle story about local bloggers. As the far-flung Nana, naturally I can only interpret this as a small taste of fame to come.

Movie: North Country

This is a richly told story based on the real experiences of women at a Minnesota taconite plant in the 1980's, where they underwent horrific treatment by male workers resentful of their fight for jobs in a place where women 'shouldn't' be. Since essentially it's a character story told against a grim industrial backdrop, the casting to carry it off is crucial, and what makes this a blockbuster is the gathering of Charlize Theron as Josey, with Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Sissy Spacek, Sean Bean, and Woody Harrelson - yes, that's all in one movie.

The most powerful acting comes in its non-speaking moments. Dozens on dozens of them - where Josey has to pull up all of her bravery to keep going in the face of unspeakable intimidation and the rejection of friends and family. Where women in the mine confront the constant horrible traps laid for them but contain their reactions to keep the paycheck coming. Where the good men around them feel outrage, then quietly put away their courage and say nothing to disturb status quo. Where a husband still has eyes only for the woman who once was his vibrant wife, now a shell melting away from Lou Gehrig's disease. Where that same woman - the first woman to breach that environment years before - struggles out of a union meeting painfully and men behind her feel only appreciation that at least there's one bitch out of their way with no effort from them.

The thing that disappointed me about this movie was while it tells so masterfully the horrors these women went through, it then puts the "sexual harassment" label on it. This goes beyond creating a hostile work environment - it was a protracted series of mob attacks carried out in conspiracy and approval of the mine's management. The depths to which these women were openly degraded, and the capacities for the gang mentality to justify it, make this a story to challenge the mind long after the credits roll. Best of all, the real women behind these events give it their approval.

Quote for November

For well you know that it's the fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder...

Lennon/McCartney

Dia de los muertos

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

--W. H. Auden